ISLAMIC HAT ALLOWED FOR LAWYER IN COURTROOM

December 2009

APN Newsletter

The appeals chamber of the Bar Association's disciplinary council has acquitted lawyer Mohammed Enait of contempt of court. He has the right not to rise when the judge enters the courtroom and can wear a Muslim hat during sessions, it has ruled. It is customary for lawyers to stand up during court cases when the judge enters the courtroom. Enait deliberately refuses to do so. His argument is that his religion maintains that everyone is equal and as a Muslim, he therefore does not want to behave subserviently.

The disciplinary council of the Bar Association reprimanded the Islamic lawyer in May. On three points, he showed contempt of court, it ruled; he refuses to rise, wears an Islamic head-covering during sessions and showed contempt of a judge in a TV talkshow. But the appeal chamber acquitted the lawyer on all three counts. His refusal to rise and his headgear are not meant to show contempt of court, in its view. And in the TV programme his relative lack of experience as a lawyer played a role.

Enait appears regularly in talk-shows on TV. The lawyer earlier became the focus of satire after it emerged that the secretaries portrayed on the website of his office were porn actresses. Enait refuses to shake hands with women. In making his claim that he does not wish to be subservient to non-Muslims, Enait overlooks the fact that in many Islamic Countries, the Dhimmi (Christians & Jews) are made to be subservient to the Muslim rulers, being as they are forced to pay a poll tax due to their different religious beliefs.

Source: MSN News